New pill can be taken once a day instead of twice as with existing pills.

New treatment for schizophrenia and other conditions.

A new, once daily formulation for schizophrenia and manic episodes associated with bipolar disorder, has today become available in the UK - it is called Seroquel XL (quetiapine prolonged release). The new formulation was developed to address the needs of patients who require effective control of symptoms in a once daily rather than twice daily tablet.

Interestingly, the manufacturers Astra Zeneca also released the results of a survey by MORI that found that 50% of people in the UK do not know the difference between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and 7% believe that they are the same.

Another survey by ICM found that 52% of psychiatrists believe that current treatment options for these conditions are not sufficient and most patients would have to make a compromise on their quality of life.

"The importance of treatment choices for people with serious mental health problems is that finding a treatment they can personally tolerate, and adhere to, means they stand a better chance of achieving control of their symptoms quickly" said Stephen Bazire, Chief Pharmacist from Norwich. "The introduction of Seroquel XL not only means patients are able to make the target dose of 600mg by day, but also gives patients and psychiatrists another option to make a recovery, thereby improving their quality of life", he added.

In this case "recovery" is the ultimate goal for most patients with schizophrenia. Whilst the condition may remain, recovery is the ability of patients to manage the symptoms of the condition by a combination of psychological and drug treatment. The release of this new treatment will give more patients more choice to help more of them reach this state.


This content was created on Tue 16 September 2008

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